PhiloAlexandria, c. 40
greek jewish · floruit 30–45 · Alexandria
After the kindling of the intelligible light, which came to be before the sun, the adversary darkness withdrew, God walling them off from one another and setting them apart, he who knew well their contrarieties and the battle that is in their nature. So that they should not always be borne together in strife, and war prevail instead of peace, setting disorder within the ordered world, he not only separated light and darkness, but also set borders in the intervals between, by which he fenced off each of the extremes. For being neighbours they would have wrought confusion, stripping for the contest over dominion in much and unceasing rivalry, had not borders been set fast between them to sunder and dissolve the assault. And these are evening and morning: of which the one heralds beforehand the sun that is to rise, gently fencing off the darkness; and evening comes on when the sun has set, mildly receiving the massed onset of the darkness. And these too, morning I mean and evening, must be placed in the order of the incorporeal and intelligible things; for there is nothing perceptible at all among them, but all are ideas and measures and types and seals, incorporeal things for the genesis of other bodies.
Why separate light from darkness, answered with a war. Light and darkness are natural enemies, and God, who knew the battle in their nature, did not merely part them but walled them off and put borders in the intervals between, because neighbours fight for mastery and the fighting would have put disorder inside the ordered world. Then the borders are named, and the naming is what makes the passage matter twice over: they are evening and morning. On the Latin bench the same reading of vayavdel as a real spatial separating is Bede's, not only by a difference of quality but of places, which Rabanus copies word for word; on the rabbinic bench the same instinct is R. Yannai's, that the division is between the deeds of the righteous and the deeds of the wicked, and it is moral rather than physical. Philo's is physical and political at once: a treaty with a demilitarised zone. The last sentence anticipates K10 and settles what evening and morning are for him: they belong among the incorporeal and intelligible things, all ideas and measures and types and seals, so the evening of the fifth verse is not a time of day.
Separated so they should not be at warDivided by place and quality
Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson
Patres378–720
greek · 370–380 · Caesarea in Cappadocia
And God separated between the light and the darkness — that is, he fashioned their nature unmingled, and unlike itself by contrariety; for he both set them apart from one another by long spaces and distinguished them, as it is said: And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.
The Greek bench's answer, in the Latin Eustathius made of it, and it is entirely physical: the division is a fashioning of the two natures so that they cannot mix, and a placing of them at long distances from each other. What Basil will not do is make the darkness nothing. He has just said, a few columns earlier, that night is the shadowing of the air which the sun's setting produces; here the darkness is a nature with a contrary, and the separating is a work on both. Bede's 'not only by a difference of quality but of place' is this sentence in another language, and Bede did not need to be reading it to arrive there — but Angelomus, who did read something like it, attributes it to Clement.
Divided by place and quality
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 387 · Milan
And he distinguished between the light and the darkness; and God saw the light, that it was good (Gen 1:4). He spoke, and no one heard the sound of a voice; he distinguished, and no one caught the labour of the working; he saw, and no one beheld the straining of his eyes. And God saw, it says, the light, that it was good. He did not see what he did not know; nor did he approve what he had not known before, or had not seen: but it is the property of good works that they need no one else to commend them, but attest their own grace when they are seen. What is proved by the sight is more than what is praised by speech. For it uses its own testimony, not another's suffrage. And if among us judgement is issued through the eyes, by which both the grace of beauty and the measure of things is grasped at once, how much more does God see all that he approves, and approve what he sees, according to what is written: The eyes of the Lord are upon the just (Ps 34:16 [Vg 33:16])? Such is the nature of light, that its grace lies not in number, not in measure, not in weight, as other things do, but wholly in the beholding. In its own words, then, he expressed the nature of light, which pleases by being seen, since it is light itself that supplies the office of seeing. Nor was it without cause that it could find so great a herald, by whom it is rightly praised first, since it is light that made the other members of the world worthy of praise too. God therefore saw the light, and lit it with his own face, and saw that it was good. This is not a judgement on God's part, but a general one. And so the grace of light is proved not only in its splendour but in its whole usefulness. And hence the distinction is made between the light and the darkness, so that, the nature of light and of darkness being separated, nothing may be seen to have anything confused within it.
The one witness on either bench who takes 'and God saw that it was good' as a statement about the nature of light rather than about the nature of God's knowledge. Ambrose's problem is not how God can be said to see; he disposes of that in a clause — he did not see what he did not know. His interest is that light is the one thing whose whole grace is in the beholding, so that it is the only creature that could have been praised first, and that a good work needs no external commender but attests itself when it is seen. Only then does he reach the division, and it comes out in a single purpose clause: so that nothing may be seen to have anything confused within it. That is Rashi's plain sense at Gen 1:4 — that it was not seemly that light and darkness should function in confusion — in Milan, and neither could have known the other.
'He saw' is approval, not discoveryDivided by place and quality
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 388–390 · Thagaste
And God divided between the light and the darkness, and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. It is not said here, God made the darkness; because the darkness, as was said above, is the absence of light: yet a distinction was made between light and darkness. Just as we make a voice by crying out, but make silence by not sounding, because the ceasing of the voice is silence — yet we distinguish by a kind of sense between voice and silence, and call the one voice and the other silence: as therefore we are rightly said to make silence, so in many places of the divine Scriptures God is rightly said to make darkness, because he either does not give light, or withdraws it, at what times and in what places he wills.
The sentence that decided the question for eight hundred years, and the analogy that carried it. Scripture does not say God made the darkness, because darkness is the absence of light; but a distinction was nevertheless made — as we make a voice by crying out and make silence by not sounding, and yet distinguish the two and name them. The care of the argument is in the last clause, which concedes the whole difficulty: Scripture does in many places say that God makes darkness, and Augustine will not deny it, so he redefines the making — God makes darkness by not giving light, or by taking it away, where and when he chooses. Angelomus copies the analogy verbatim without the concession and with 'gives or withdraws' in place of 'does not give or withdraws'; Wigbod's compiler puts the opposite doctrine into Augustine's mouth on the same page.
Darkness is not a thingHe did not make it but ordered it
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 393 · Hippo Regius
And God divided between the light and the darkness. From this it may be understood with how great an ease of divine working these things are said to have been effected. For there is no one who so supposes the light to have been made that it was confused with the darkness, and for that reason needed a separation afterwards; but by the very fact that the light was made, the division between light and darkness also followed. For what fellowship has light with darkness (2 Cor 6:14)? God therefore divided between light and darkness, because he made the light, whose absence is called darkness. And there is a difference between light and darkness such as there is between a garment and nakedness, or the full and the empty, and the like.
The objection Augustine is answering is never stated on the rabbinic bench and is the obvious one: if God had to divide them, they must first have been mixed. His answer is that no separate act is needed — the division followed on the making, because the making of light is the not-being of darkness, as putting on a garment is the ending of nakedness and filling a vessel the ending of its emptiness. Hugh of St Victor takes over the instantaneity and applies it to the angels; and the same instinct, that the two were never confused and needed no unmixing, is what Ambrose gets from the other end when he says the division exists so that nothing should have anything confused within it.
Darkness is not a thingThe division needed no second act
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 393 · Hippo Regius
Whether, then, this sentence would have us understand the ethereal light, or the sensitive light in which animals share, or the rational light which angels and men have, to have been made by God first in the nature of things — that God divided between light and darkness, by the very fact that light was made, must be taken to mean that light is one thing and those privations of light another, which God set in order under the name of their contrary, darkness. For it is not said that God made the darkness: since God made the forms themselves, not the privations, which belong to nothing, whence all things were made by God the craftsman; yet we understand that they were set in order by him, when it is said, And God divided between light and darkness — lest even those privations should not have their own order, God ruling and administering all things. As in singing, the interpositions of silences at fixed and measured intervals, although they are privations of sound, are nevertheless well ordered by those who know how to sing, and contribute something to the sweetness of the whole song. And the shadows in paintings set off whatever is more prominent, and please not by their form but by their order. For God is not the author of our vices either; yet he is their orderer, when he sets sinners in that place and compels them to suffer what they deserve. To this belongs it that the sheep are set on the right hand and the goats on the left (Matt 25:33). Some things, then, God both makes and orders; some he only orders. The just he both makes and orders; sinners, in so far as they are sinners, he does not make but only orders. Since when he sets these on the right and those on the left, and bids them go into eternal fire, it belongs to the order of their deserts. So he both makes and orders the forms and natures themselves; but the privations of forms and the defects of natures he does not make, but only orders. And so he said, Let there be light; and light was made. He did not say, Let there be darkness; and darkness was made. Of these, then, he made one and did not make the other, yet ordered both, when God divided between light and darkness. And so, by his making, the several things are beautiful; and by his ordering, all things are beautiful.
The best thing said on this crux in Latin, and the one place where Augustine's privation doctrine stops being a piece of metaphysics and becomes an aesthetic. God did not make the darkness; but he ordered it, and the dividing is the ordering — 'lest even those privations should not have their own order'. Then the two analogies, which are not decoration but the argument: the rests in a song, which are privations of sound and are nevertheless placed at measured intervals by anyone who knows how to sing and add to the sweetness of the whole; and the shadows in a painting, which set off what is prominent and 'please not by their form but by their order'. And then the step that makes the reading moral without making the darkness a substance: God is not the author of our vices, but he is their orderer, when he puts sinners in the place they deserve — sheep on the right and goats on the left. The rabbinic bench's moral reading of this verse (R. Yanai, R. Abahu) reaches the same pairing of righteous and wicked at the same clause and never has to make the darkness nothing to do it, because it never took up the question of whether darkness is a thing.
Darkness is not a thingHe did not make it but ordered itThe wicked, or their deeds
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 413–427 · Hippo Regius
Although, then, the obscurity of the divine speech is useful even for this, that it brings forth many opinions of the truth and produces them into the light of knowledge, while one man understands it this way and another that — provided always that what is understood in an obscure place is confirmed either by the attestation of manifest things, or by other passages not at all doubtful; and provided that, when many things are handled, one arrives also at what the writer meant, or, if that lies hidden, that on occasion of handling a deep obscurity some other true things are said: it does not seem to me an opinion at odds with the works of God, if, when that first light was made, the angels are understood to have been created, and a distinction to have been made between the holy angels and the unclean, where it is said, And God divided between the light and the darkness; and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. For he alone could distinguish these, who could also foreknow, before they fell, that they would fall, and that, deprived of the light of truth, they would remain in darksome pride. For between this day and night best known to us — that is, between this light and these darknesses — he commanded the luminaries of heaven most familiar to our senses to divide: Let there be, he said, luminaries in the firmament of heaven, that they may shine upon the earth, and divide between the day and the night. And a little after: And God made, he says, two great luminaries; the greater luminary for the beginning of the day, and the lesser luminary for the beginning of the night; and the stars: and God set them in the firmament of heaven, to shine upon the earth, and to preside over the day and the night, and to divide between the light and the darkness (Gen 1:4, 5, 14, 16–18). But between that light, which is the holy fellowship of the angels shining intelligibly with the illumination of truth, and the darkness contrary to it — that is, the most foul minds of the evil angels turned away from the light of justice — he alone could divide, to whom even a future evil, not of nature but of will, could not be hidden or uncertain.
Augustine's angelic reading, and it is offered with more hedging than anything else he says about this verse: the obscurity of Scripture is useful because it breeds many true readings, and 'it does not seem to me an opinion at odds with the works of God' if the light is the angels and the division is between the holy and the unclean. The argument for it is a philological one — the luminaries of the fourth day are commanded to divide light from darkness in the ordinary sense, so the division of the first day must be another division — and it depends on nobody but God being able to make it, since it separates by foreknowledge of a fall that has not happened. This is the reading Wigbod, Angelomus, Hugh, Rupert and Comestor all take up, and none of them keeps the hedge.
The darkness is the apostate angelsThe division is a judgement
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 413–427 · Hippo Regius
And this too is not to be passed over in silence, that where God said, Let there be light, and light was made, there was at once added, And God saw the light, that it was good — not after he had separated between the light and the darkness, and called the light day and the darkness night, lest he should seem to have borne the testimony of his approval to such darkness along with the light. For where the darkness is blameless, between which and this light visible to our eyes the luminaries of heaven divide, it is put not before but after: And God saw that it was good. And he set them, it says, in the firmament of heaven, to shine upon the earth, and to preside over the day and the night, and to separate between the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good. For both pleased him, because both are without sin. But where God said, Let there be light, and light was made, and God saw the light, that it was good; and afterwards it is added, And God separated between the light and the darkness; and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night (Gen 1:3–5, 17, 18) — in this place it is not added, And God saw that it was good; lest both should be called good, when one of them was evil, by its own vice and not by nature. And therefore the light alone pleased the Creator there: but the angelic darkness, though it had to be ordered, did not have to be approved.
The star witness of this crux, and the argument is made entirely out of where a clause stands. On the first day the approval comes immediately after the making and before the division; on the fourth day, where the darkness is blameless, it comes after the division. So the placing is deliberate: on day one God does not say 'it was good' after separating light from darkness, lest he seem to approve such darkness along with the light. The reason is given in five words — 'lest both should be called good, when one of them was evil' — and the last sentence keeps the distinction the whole Augustinian doctrine rests on: the angelic darkness had to be ordered, but did not have to be approved. Bereshit Rabbah 3:6 reads the same silence out of the next verse by exactly the same method — 'and to the darkness God called night' is not written here, but 'and to the darkness he called night' — and R. Abahu at 2:5 argues the identical point from the identical omission at the identical clause.
The approval is deliberately withheldThe darkness is the apostate angels
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 630 · Seville
And he divided the light from the darkness; for then God, according to the favour of his foreknowledge, divided the just — that is, the sons of God and of light — from sinners, as from darkness; calling the just day, and those others night. For that in the Church the just are called by the name of light, hear the Apostle: You were once, he says, darkness, but now light in the Lord (Eph 5:8).
Isidore takes the verse straight into the Church, and the sequence he is running is a reading of the six days as the six ages of the Christian life, so that the division of light from darkness is the first thing that happens to a believer and the firmament on the second day is the solidity of Scripture. What matters for this crux is that the division is God's foreknowledge sorting the just from sinners: the same act Augustine locates among the angels, moved down to human beings, with Eph 5:8 doing for Isidore what Ps 75 does for Rupert. The rabbinic bench reaches the identical pairing at the identical clause, and reaches it by reading the darkness as the deeds of the wicked rather than the wicked themselves — a difference that runs through every allegory on both benches and is never once discussed.
The wicked, or their deedsThe division is a judgement
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 703–725 · Jarrow
And he divided the light and the darkness. For he divided them not only by a difference of quality, but of places: namely by spreading the light over the upper part of the world, in which the human way of life was to be, and by allowing the lower parts of it to remain in their ancient darkness.
Two clauses, and they set the Latin bench's literal answer for the next five hundred years: the division is by quality and by place, the light spread over the upper part of the world where men were going to live and the lower part left in the darkness it already had. Bede does not argue with Augustine; he simply does not raise the question whether darkness is a thing, and answers a question about where. The sentence is copied verbatim by Rabanus, taken over by Angelomus with an attribution to Clement, and reappears in Comestor as 'he divided the created things by distance of places and by quality'. It is also, without any contact, the same answer as Basil's long distances and the same answer as R. Yoḥanan and Resh Lakish's two generals, each given his bound.
Divided by place and quality
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
VersionesLXX · Vulgate
greek jewish · c. 250 BCE · Alexandria
And God saw the light, that it was beautiful. And God separated between the light and between the darkness.
Two features of the Greek decide most of what the Latin bench can say. First, the Hebrew ki tov is rendered kalon, 'beautiful' rather than 'good' — so that the approval reads as an aesthetic verdict, which is what Ambrose then expounds at length and what Augustine has to argue is not a verdict reached after the event. Second, the Hebrew's bein … u-vein is carried over word for word as ana meson … kai ana meson, 'between … and between', and the Old Latin that Augustine and his Carolingian copyists read reproduces it as divisit inter lucem et tenebras. Jerome does not: he writes divisit lucem a tenebris. Which of the two a Latin witness quotes is the cleanest single indication of which Latin text lay in front of him, and on this verse the two texts sort the bench almost perfectly.
Divided by place and quality'He saw' is approval, not discovery
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 392 · Bethlehem
And God saw the light, that it was good: and he divided the light from the darkness.
Jerome drops the Greek's doubled preposition and writes an ordinary Latin sentence: he divided the light from the darkness. The change is small and its consequences are not. Where the Old Latin's inter lucem et tenebras leaves the two terms standing side by side as a pair between which a distinction is drawn, a tenebris makes the darkness the thing the light is taken away from — an ablative of separation, with something there to be separated from. Augustine, Angelomus and Alcuin quote the older form and argue that no darkness was made; Bede, Remigius, the Glossa and Comestor quote Jerome's and hold that both were made. The correlation is not perfect — Hugh and Rupert quote Jerome and follow Augustine — but it is close enough to be visible on the page.
Divided by place and quality'He saw' is approval, not discovery
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
Glossa ordinariaLaon, c. 1120
latin · compilation 1110–1130 · Laon
VERSE 4. 'And God saw the light,' etc. (STRABO.) God made both the light and the darkness, whence Daniel 3: 'Bless the Lord, light and darkness,' since every creature is invited to bless. (ISIDORE, on Genesis, ch. 2.) Everyone has in his works and upright life six distinct days, after which he may hope for rest: on the first day, the light of faith, since he first believes in things invisible, for which faith the Lord deigned to appear.
The whole of the standard gloss on this verse is two sentences, and what they select is the answer to the crux. Of everything the Latin bench had said about Gen 1:4 — Augustine's privation, his angels, his order without making, Bede's places, Ambrose on the nature of light — the Glossa prints Remigius' 'God made both the light and the darkness' with the Benedicite behind it, and Isidore's light of faith. So the twelfth-century schoolroom's default reading of this verse is the anti-Augustinian one on the literal side and the moral one on the allegorical, and Augustine's answer, which every twelfth-century witness on this crux still argues from, has to be fetched from elsewhere. Note also that the gloss on 1:2 in the same chapter carries the opposite doctrine — 'darkness was there, namely the privation of true light' — three columns earlier.
God made the darkness tooThe wicked, or their deeds
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
מפרשיםTargums · Midrash · Bavli · Rashi
rabbinic · c. 150 · Palestine
And the LORD saw the light, that it was good; and the LORD set apart between the light and between the darkness.
Onkelos renders the verse word for word and adds nothing — afresh for hivdil, the same doubled 'between' as the Hebrew. This is worth recording rather than passing over, because Onkelos is not usually so quiet: he will paraphrase to protect the divine name and to remove anthropomorphism, and here, where God is said to see and to judge, he leaves both standing.
Divided by place and quality
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
rabbinic · compilation 400–500 · Galilee (Tiberias / Sepphoris)
Rabbi Abahu and Rabbi Ḥiyya the Great, Rabbi Abahu said: Right from the beginning of the creation of the world, the Holy One blessed be He foresaw the actions of the righteous and the actions of the wicked. That is what is written: “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” (Psalms 1:6). “The earth was emptiness and disorder” – these are the actions of the wicked. “God said: Let there be light” – these are the actions of the righteous. But I do not know which He desires, whether it is the actions of these, or the actions of those. When it is written: “God saw the light, that it was good” (Genesis 1:4) – this shows that He desires the actions of the righteous, and does not desire the actions of the wicked.
The moral reading built as an argument rather than asserted. R. Abahu takes the opening verses as a foresight of the deeds of the righteous and of the wicked — tohu va-vohu the deeds of the wicked, 'let there be light' the deeds of the righteous — and then stops on the difficulty: 'but I do not know which of them he desires.' The verse that settles it is Gen 1:4. Because it is written 'and God saw the light, that it was good', and not written of the darkness, he desires the deeds of the righteous and does not desire the deeds of the wicked. The whole weight falls on what the verse omits to say, which is precisely Augustine's argument in City of God XI.20 and the question Wigbod's pupil asks in his master's face.
The wicked, or their deeds'He saw' is approval, not discovery
English: The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022
rabbinic · compilation 400–500 · Galilee (Tiberias / Sepphoris)
Rabbi Ze’eira son of Rabbi Abahu preached in Caesarea: From where is it derived that someone does not recite a blessing on the candle [at havdala on Saturday night] until he avails himself of its light? It is from here: “[God] saw…and [God] distinguished [vayavdel].” Rabbi Yehuda bar Rabbi Simon said: He set it aside for Himself. The Rabbis say: He set it aside for the righteous in the World to Come. This is analogous to a king who had a fine portion of food and set it aside for his son. “God called the light, Day, and to the darkness He called Night. It was evening and it was morning, one day” (Genesis 1:5). Rabbi Berekhya said: This is what two eminent men of the world, Rabbi Yoḥanan and Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, expounded: “[God] distinguished” – this refers to distinguishing in the literal sense. This is analogous to a king who had two commanders, one to be in charge by day and one to be in charge by night. They were arguing with one another. This one said: ‘I will be in charge by day,’ and that one said: ‘I will be in charge by day.’ The king summoned the first one and said to him: ‘So-and-so, the day will be your realm.’ Likewise for the second one, he said to him: ‘So-and-so, the night will be your realm.’ So, too, “God called the light, Day” – He said to it: ‘The day will be your realm.’ “And to the darkness He called Night” – He said to it: ‘The night will be your realm.’ Rabbi Yoḥanan said: That is what the Holy One blessed be He says to Job: “In all your days, have you commanded the morning and apprised darkness of its place?” (Job 38:12) – have you informed it of its place, where it is? This was a rhetorical question. Rabbi Tanḥuma said: I will say the source for this: “He forms light and creates darkness, He makes peace” (Isaiah 45:7) – after they were created, He made peace [between them].
Five answers to va-yavdel in one block, and between them they cover the whole ground the Latin bench covers, in a different order and with a liturgical question in front. R. Ze'eira of Caesarea asks from where we know that one does not bless the lamp at havdala until he has used its light, and answers 'from here: he saw … and he separated' — the seeing must come before the separating, so the verse becomes the source of a benediction. R. Yehuda bar Simon: he separated it for himself. The Rabbis: he separated it for the righteous in the time to come, like a king who had a fine portion and set it aside for his son. Then R. Yoḥanan and Resh Lakish, 'two eminent men of the world': va-yavdel means a real separating — a king with two generals, each claiming the day, told one 'day shall be your bound' and the other 'night shall be your bound'. Then R. Tanḥuma brings Isa 45:7, 'who forms light and creates darkness, who makes peace' — after they were created, he made peace between them, which grants outright that the darkness was created. Slice note: K8 built this Sefaria segment whole as `br-3-6` for its first half (the stored light); Phase 4 trimmed K8's slice rather than delete this one. Phase 6 split it again. R. Elazar's argument from the withheld divine name used to close this card, which put two arguments on two clauses on one witness against the frozen rule; it is now `br-3-6c`, and the two star threads that were always about it (t-k9-01 with Augustine, t-k9-24 with Hugh) point there. The split was forced by the move to the Wikisource recension, which prints R. Elazar BEFORE the va-yavdel block rather than after it — so the old cut is not a contiguous span in the new Hebrew at all.
The verse is the source of the havdala ruleHe set the light asideDivided by place and qualityGod made the darkness too
English: The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022
rabbinic · compilation 400–500 · Galilee (Tiberias / Sepphoris)
Rabbi Yanai said: Right from the beginning of the creation of the world, the Holy One blessed be He foresaw the actions of the righteous and the actions of the wicked. “The earth was emptiness” (Genesis 1:2) – these are the actions of the wicked. “God said: Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3) – these are the actions of the righteous. “God distinguished between the light and the darkness” (Genesis 1:4) – between the actions of the righteous and the actions of the wicked. “God called the light, Day” (Genesis 1:5) – these are the actions of the righteous. “And to the darkness He called Night” (Genesis 1:5) – these are the actions of the wicked.
R. Yanai runs the moral reading through the verses one clause at a time, so that nothing in Gen 1:2–5 is about light and darkness at all. The earth was tohu — the deeds of the wicked. Let there be light — the deeds of the righteous. And God divided between the light and the darkness — between the deeds of the righteous and the deeds of the wicked. He called the light day — the deeds of the righteous; and to the darkness he called night — the deeds of the wicked. It is the same reading as R. Abahu's at 2:5 with the argument taken out and the verse-by-verse mapping put in its place, and it is what Isidore, Rabanus, Remigius and the Glossa do in Latin with the same clauses, four hundred years later and to the same effect. Slice note: K10 built the continuation of this section as `br-3-8`, beginning at 'it was evening'; this is the part before it.
The wicked, or their deeds
English: The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022
rabbinic · 400–800 · Palestine
And the Lord beheld the light, that it was good; and the Lord divided between the light and the darkness.
The expansive targum, and on this verse it expands nothing: its Gen 1:4 is Onkelos letter for letter. One verse later it is at work again — the light was made so that the inhabitants of the world might labour by it, the darkness so that the creatures might rest in it — which is Remigius' reason for the division, arrived at in Aramaic. That the expansion attaches to the naming in v. 5 and not to the dividing in v. 4 is itself evidence about where the rabbinic bench thought the difficulty lay.
Divided by place and quality
English: J. W. Etheridge, 1862
rabbinic · 750–850 · Palestine
Eight things were created on the first day, namely, Heaven, Earth, Light, Darkness, Tohu (Chaos), Bohu (Void), Wind (or Spirit), and Water, as it is said, "And the wind of God was moving upon the face of the waters" (Gen. 1:2). Some (wise men) say that day and night also, as it is said, And there was evening and morning, one day (Gen. 1:5). Eight things were created on the second day, namely, the Well, the Manna, the Rod, the Rainbow, the art of writing, the written characters, the Garments, and the destroying spirits. Ten things arose in the thought (of the Creator), namely, Jerusalem," the spirits of the patriarchs, the paths of the righteous, Hell (Gehenom), the waters of the flood, the second tables, the shabbat, the temple and the light of the world to come.
An inventory, and the darkness is on it. Eight things were created on the first day: heaven, earth, light, darkness, tohu, bohu, wind and water. There is no argument, no proof text for the darkness in particular, and no sense that anything needs defending — the list simply has light and darkness next to each other as two of the eight. Set beside Alcuin's answer to the same question, 'which creatures were made out of nothing? — heaven, earth, angels, light, air, water and the soul of man', the two lists are the same kind of thing with the contested items swapped: Alcuin has the angels and the soul and no darkness, Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer has the darkness and the tohu and no angels. Neither list argues; each is the settled answer of a bench.
God made the darkness too
English: Gerald Friedlander, 1916
rabbinic · 1080–1105 · Troyes
וירא אלהים את האור כי טוב ויבדל AND GOD SAW THE LIGHT THAT IT WAS GOOD, AND GOD CAUSED A DIVISION — Here, also, we must depend upon the statement of the Agada: He saw that the wicked were unworthy of using it (the light); He, therefore, set it apart (ויבדל), reserving it for the righteous in the world to come (Chagigah 12a). But according to the plain sense explain it thus: He saw that it was good, and that it was not seemly that light and darkness should function together in a confused manner. He therefore limited this one’s sphere of activity to the daytime, and this one’s sphere of activity to the nighttime (see Genesis Rabbah 3:6).
Rashi puts the two rabbinic answers in his usual order and names both sources. First 'here too we must depend on the statement of the Agada': God saw that the wicked were unworthy of the light, so he set it apart for the righteous in the world to come — and he cites Chagigah 12a for it. Then the plain sense, from Bereshit Rabbah 3:6: it was not seemly that light and darkness should work in confusion, so he gave each its own hours. The hiding is aggada and the division is peshat, and Rashi does not merge them. Note that the hiding is derived from the word va-yavdel, 'and he divided' — the same word K9 is built on.
Stored for the righteous
English: Rosenbaum–Silbermann 1929–34
rabbinic · c. 1155 · Lucca
And He saw: Like “I myself saw…” Ecclesiastes 2:13; Daniel 10:7, it is [seeing] in [one’s] thought. And the meaning of “and He separated” – through calling of names.
Two clauses, and each disposes of half the crux. 'And he saw' is like Qohelet's 'I myself saw' — it is in the thought, so nothing happened at that moment and there is no inspection to explain. 'And the meaning of and he divided is by the calling of names' — the dividing of v. 4 simply is the naming of v. 5, so there is no separate act of separation to be located in space, in time, or among the angels. Every Latin answer on this crux presupposes that va-yavdel reports a distinct work; Ibn Ezra denies the premise in nine Hebrew words. Nobody on the Latin bench considers it, and the grammarian's solution has no counterpart there — although Augustine at De Genesi contra Manichaeos comes within a sentence of it when he wonders whether to have divided just is to have named.
The dividing is the naming'He saw' is approval, not discovery
English: Sefaria Community Translation
ScholaeCarolingian and twelfth-century Latin, 790–1170
latin · c. 790 · Tours
AUGUSTINE. D[isciple]. And he divided the light from the darkness. Scripture says he divided the light from the darkness: for everything that is divided can also be. As therefore there is an essence of light, so there is an essence of darkness. And why does Scripture not say, God saw the darkness, that it was good, as was said of the light? M[aster]. God with a good and unchangeable will created all the angels good, but because he foreknew that some of them would fall through pride, by the unchangeableness of his foreknowledge he divided between the good and the evil. Calling the evil darkness, then, and the good light, he says of these that they are good, and of those he says it not at all, lest he should seem to approve the sins which were the darkness. ELSEWHERE AGAIN. D. He divided the light from the darkness. What is it to divide the light from the darkness? M. It is the distinction of the formed thing from the unformed.
A Carolingian compilation putting under the rubric AUGUSTINUS the one proposition Augustine spent three works denying. The pupil's inference is a good one and it is not Augustine's: everything that is divided can also be, therefore as there is an essence of light so there is an essence of darkness. The pupil then asks the right question — why does Scripture not say God saw the darkness that it was good? — and the master's answer is Augustine's own from City of God XI.20, almost word for word, down to 'lest he should seem to approve'. So the transmission carries the answer and loses the doctrine it was an answer to: within two sentences the darkness has an essence and is being withheld from approval because it is sin. The third exchange then gives a third answer, the distinction of the formed from the unformed, which is Honorius' and Abelard's and belongs to a different question again.
God made the darkness tooThe approval is deliberately withheldThe formed from the unformed
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 800 · Tours
Question 35. What is: God saw that it was good? — Answer. That is: what he made pleased him to remain in that goodness in which it pleased him to be made.
One sentence, and it removes the difficulty the whole Latin bench is worrying at. If 'God saw that it was good' were an inspection, God would be learning something; Alcuin makes it a persistence of the same pleasure — what pleased him to be made pleased him to remain. Augustine puts the same thing at City of God XI.21 with more machinery ('he teaches that it is good, he does not learn it') and Comestor will divide the moment in two, pleasing in foreknowledge that it should be made and pleasing in being that it should stay. The Carolingian schoolbook has it in twenty words and does not notice that it is an answer to anything.
'He saw' is approval, not discovery
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 820–830 · Fulda
And he divided the light and the darkness. For he divided them not only by a difference of quality, but of places: namely by spreading the light over the upper part of the world, in which the human way of life was to be, and by allowing the lower parts of it to remain in their ancient darkness.
Bede's two clauses reproduced without a word changed and without a name — the commonest event on the Carolingian bench and worth one card, because it is what makes the difference of quality and of place the standing Latin answer rather than one Northumbrian's opinion. Rabanus is compiling a commentary for the schools out of the fathers, and Bede is by now among the fathers.
Divided by place and quality
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 850 · Luxeuil
But when he says, and he divided the light from the darkness, he shows that a distinction was made between light and darkness, not that darkness was made; as we say we make a voice by crying out, and silence by not crying out, because the ceasing of the voice is silence. Yet we distinguish between them by a kind of sense, and call the one voice and the other silence. As therefore we rightly say that we make silence, so God is rightly said to make darkness; because he either gives or withdraws light, at what times and places he wills. Because, as Clement says: Lighting up one part of the world, he left the other dark — namely by spreading the light over the upper part of the world, in which the human way of life was to be, and the lower parts of it remaining in their ancient darkness. If anyone chooses to take it so, we, as we began, have striven to follow blessed Augustine and the exposition of the master. And God divided the light and the darkness, and the rest. That is, the heavenly citizens of the angels from the unclean spirits, when Lucifer, turning away from the Creator and turning to himself, reckoning that he sufficed to himself, swollen with pride, was cast out from the heavenly places with his followers, without the help of his maker, and the rest remained in their stability — calling these day and those night, according to what follows: and he called the light day, and the darkness night. For the ruin of those who fell became the eternal stability of those who remained.
Three answers laid end to end with a hinge sentence between them, and the hinge is the most honest thing in the Carolingian bench: 'if anyone chooses to take it so, we, as we began, have striven to follow blessed Augustine.' First Augustine's privation with the silence analogy, copied close enough to be recognised and altered in one word — Augustine wrote that God either does not give light or withdraws it, Angelomus writes that he gives or withdraws it, which quietly makes the darkness something conferred. Then Bede's upper and lower parts of the world, attributed to Clement. Then the angelic reading, with Lucifer named and the fall narrated, and a sentence that is not in Augustine at all: the ruin of those who fell became the eternal stability of those who remained. A compiler who cannot choose is not thereby a bad witness; the three answers are the three the twelfth century will still be sorting.
Darkness is not a thingDivided by place and qualityThe darkness is the apostate angels
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 890 · Auxerre
And he divided the light from the darkness. Darkness (tenebrae) is so called from holding (tenendo), because it holds the eyes so that they may not see. But God made both, the light and the darkness — namely, that men might work in the light and rest in the night. Therefore the darkness too is a work of God. Whence in the hymn of the three young men, in which every creature is invited to bless God, the darkness also is set down along with the light.
The flat contradiction of Augustine, stated in four sentences and with a proof text, in a school commentary written for teaching. God made both, and the reason is a reason from use: that men should work in the light and rest at night. Then the sentence Augustine's whole argument exists to prevent — therefore the darkness too is a work of God — and then the evidence, which is liturgical rather than philosophical: in the Benedicite, where every creature is called to bless the Lord, light and darkness are called together (Dan 3:72). It is a good argument. If the darkness is a privation it cannot be summoned to praise, and the canticle summons it. Remigius does not mention Augustine, and the Glossa will print this gloss over the name of Strabo on the same page as glosses that assume the opposite.
God made the darkness tooNight made for rest
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 890 · Auxerre
He divided the light from the darkness on this day: because in this age the sons of God, that is, the sons of Seth, were separated from the impious generation of Cain, whose evening was the multiplied iniquity of men, that God might bring on the flood.
The same commentator, the same verse, and a wholly different reading a few columns later, because Remigius runs the six days a second time as the six ages of the world. On the second pass the division of light from darkness is a datable event in Genesis: the separation of the sons of Seth from the line of Cain, with the multiplied iniquity of men as its evening and the flood following. It is the most concrete form the moral reading takes anywhere on the Latin bench — not the just in general, but two named genealogies — and it is exactly the move Bereshit Rabbah does not make, since for R. Yanai and R. Abahu the light and the darkness are deeds and not families.
The wicked, or their deedsThe division is a judgement
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 1112–1117 · Liège
It is to be noted first of all that it is said: God saw the light, that it was good. (For none is good but one, God — Matt 19:17.) Further, whoever is called good, whether man or angel, is rightly called good only in respect of the good God, since, as none is good but one, God, whoever is good, or is said to be good, is good only in so far as he partakes of the good God. Accordingly it is not said: God saw the earth, that it was good, or the luminaries, that they were good, because they are not capable of goodness. But it is said of each: God saw that it was good — that is, a good thing, good, I say, that is, a useful thing. For the rational creature alone is capable of the divine goodness, that is, of the Spirit of God; and therefore man or angel alone is to be called good absolutely, namely in so far as man or angel has been made a partaker of the good God. Therefore this very judgement by which God saw the light, that it was good, compels that light to be understood which is capable of the divine goodness: a rational light, an intellectual light, the shining dignity of the angelic creature. But how is it said, And God saw the light, that it was good? Had he not seen, before he made it, that to make it was good? Does not the evangelist say of that Word in which he said 'let it be', that what was made, in him was life (John 1:3–4)? Therefore what he saw, he weighed with a just judgement and reckoned worthy of his regard. For there follows: And he divided the light and the darkness. This division of light and darkness intimates that a terrible judgement of God was made upon the devil. Of which the psalmist says: You are terrible, and who shall resist you? From then your anger (Ps 76:8 [Vg 75:8]). […] For since the devil resisted — that is, willed to resist you — you were angry, and he could not resist; for the angel fell and was made a devil. This terrible judgement is intimated by the division of light and darkness. For what are those darknesses, unless all the angels of Satan with their prince? These darknesses, surely, God divided from the light, because he separated the evil angels from the good. He divided them, I say, by an unchangeable separation, so that neither can those who fell rise again, nor can those who, though they could have sinned, refused to fall by sinning, ever fall by sinning any more. […] But whence those darknesses came has already been said: namely, from where the aforesaid light came, thence came those darknesses also; for they were shining angels, and by their own vice were made darksome demons.
Rupert argues to the angelic reading from the word 'good' rather than assuming it, and the argument is his own. None is good but God; whatever else is called good is good by partaking of him; only a rational creature can partake of him — therefore only a rational creature can be called good absolutely, and the fact that the text says of this light that it was good, and not merely that it was a good thing, forces the light to be intellectual. That is why, he notes, it is not said of the earth or of the luminaries that they were good. Then the division becomes a sentence passed: 'a terrible judgement of God upon the devil', unchangeable in both directions, so that the fallen cannot rise and the standing can no longer fall. And the answer to where the darkness came from is the one answer that makes it neither a privation nor a creature: it came from where the light came from — they were shining angels and made themselves dark. Elided: two psalm citations expounded at length. Rupert reads divisit lucem et tenebras without a preposition, which is neither Jerome's text nor the Old Latin's.
The darkness is the apostate angelsThe division is a judgement'He saw' is approval, not discovery
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 1130 · Regensburg
And God saw the light, that it was good. That is, he gave the rational creature to understand how good are all the things it discerns by the light. And he divided the light and the darkness: namely, so that the light should shine twelve hours above the earth and twelve below the earth; and the darkness, put to flight by the light, should lie hidden twelve hours below the earth and as many above it.
The literal answer taken as far as it will go: the division is a timetable. The light of the first day travels on a twelve-hour circuit above the earth and twelve below, and the darkness does the reverse, hiding below while the light is above. Bede's difference of place has become a mechanism with hours in it, and there is no privation anywhere in the sentence — the darkness is put to flight by the light and lies hidden, which are things only a body does. On the ki tov half Honorius takes the seeing out of God altogether: 'he gave the rational creature to understand how good are all the things it discerns by the light', so the goodness is what we see by the light, not what God saw in it. Nobody else on either bench makes the approval a gift to the beholder.
Divided by place and quality
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 1133 · The Paraclete (Nogent-sur-Seine)
And he divided the light from the darkness. That is, by his working he distinguished the perfect from the imperfect and the distinct from the confused. Above, where he says, And God said: Let there be light, and light was made, he showed that the light was made at God's command. But here, when he says, And he divided the light from the darkness, he shows that this distinction of works also, which he calls light, was made by him; so that one and the same is understood to be both the Creator of the matter and the former of it, and the whole praise, both for the creation of the matter and for the forming of the works, is attributed to him.
Abelard makes the verse do a piece of work nobody else asks of it. The light is the distinction of the works and the darkness is the confusion out of which they were distinguished — so that Gen 1:3 attributes the creating of matter to God and Gen 1:4 attributes the forming of it to the same God, and the whole praise falls in one place. The point is directed against a reading in which matter is one thing and its forming another, and it is the argument he needed at Gen 1:1 (see K4); here he gets it out of the dividing. It also means that on this crux the darkness is neither a privation nor an element nor an angel, but a state of the world before it was ordered — which is Honorius' and Wigbod's third answer as well, arrived at from the other end.
The formed from the unformedHe did not make it but ordered it
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 1130–1137 · Paris
And as it seems to me, at precisely the same moment of time at which the light was visibly and bodily divided from the darkness, invisibly also the good angels were distinguished from those evil ones falling into the darkness of sin, these being turned to the light of justice and illuminated by the light, so that they should be light and not darkness. For thus the patterns of God's works had to agree, that the outcome of invisible things should follow the works of wisdom which were visible, according as that same wisdom which was working in both places here exercised judgement and there formed the pattern. The light, then, was divided from the darkness; and there was visible light and there were visible darknesses; likewise there was invisible light, and there were invisible darknesses; and a division of both was made, and the division of the darknesses and of the light was made at once. And the light was called day and the darkness night. God indeed divided both, and named both; but he did not make both. For God is not the author of darkness but of light; because sin is darkness and sin is nothing: And without him was made nothing (John 1:3). Light was made by him; because justice and truth are light, and of light we have heard what God said: Let there be light, and at once light was made (Gen 1). Nowhere did God say: Let there be darkness. But of light he said: Let there be light, and he divided the light from the darkness; and he called the light day, and the darkness night. Therefore he did not make both; yet he divided both, and named both. He divided by judgement; and by merit he named, judged and disposed. For since not even that could be disordered in his judging which was disordered among the offenders, he called the light day, and the darkness night.
The most carefully joined statement of the Latin answer, and the join is the point. Hugh will not choose between the physical and the angelic reading: both happened, and they happened at the same moment of time, because the visible works of wisdom and the invisible outcomes had to match — 'here it exercised judgement, there it formed the pattern'. So there was visible light and visible darkness, invisible light and invisible darkness, and one division of both at once. Then he states Augustine's doctrine in its sharpest Latin — God divided both and named both, but did not make both, for sin is darkness and sin is nothing — and closes with the distinction the crux has been waiting for: he divided by judgement and named by merit. That the naming is by merit is Hugh's own, and it answers the question the rabbinic bench answers with R. Elazar's 'he never joins his name to the bad': what a thing is called follows what it deserves.
The darkness is the apostate angelsDarkness is not a thingThe division is a judgementThe division needed no second act
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 1130–1137 · Paris
CHAPTER XIII. Why Scripture says: 'God saw the light.' But perhaps it occurs to someone: how did God see the light, that it was good, and divide the light from the darkness, and call the light day and the darkness night (Gen 1)? For if he saw his other works in the light, that they were good, in what light did he see the light, that it was good, and divide the light from the darkness, and call the light day and the darkness night? For nothing can be seen without light; but neither are darknesses seen without light — how much more is light not seen without light? What, then, was that light through which God saw the light, that it was good, and divided the light from the darkness? Did he see by that same light that it was good, or by another light? But how could he have seen through it that it was good, if he had not had another light through which and in which he saw that light, that it was good? For if he saw that this light was good, and truly saw it, he saw it in something of whose goodness there could be no doubt. Therefore there was another light, uncreated, in which this created light was seen to be good; because it imitated that light which is always good. For in that light, since it alone is good, both evils and goods are seen; and not only are evils and goods seen in it, but evils are seen to be evil and goods to be good in it, for the reason that it is truly and supremely good. For what is seen to disagree with it is seen to be evil; and what is seen to be like it is seen to be good; and both are seen only in it and through it. By light, therefore, he proved light: because in the unchangeable light he saw that this changeable light was good in its own mode and order.
A schoolman's difficulty made out of the order of the clauses, and worth the card because it is the only place on this crux where the seeing is treated as a problem in its own right rather than as a manner of speaking. If God saw the other works in the light of day one, in what light did he see that light? He cannot have seen it by itself, since nothing sees itself; so there was another and unchangeable light, and in that light he saw that this changeable one was good 'in its own mode and order'. Ambrose had refused the question by saying the seeing is not an inspection, Alcuin by making it a persistence of pleasure, Ibn Ezra by saying it is in the thought. Hugh alone answers it by positing a second light — uncreated, in which this changeable light was seen to be good because it imitated one that is always good — and then draws out what that light is for: in it not only are goods and evils seen, but goods are seen to be good and evils to be evil. The answer costs him a second light and buys him a criterion.
'He saw' is approval, not discovery
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 1170 · Paris
And God saw the light, that it was good — that is, which had pleased him in his presence, or in his foreknowledge, that it should be made; it pleased him in its being, that it should remain. Or figuratively, he saw, that is, he made to be seen. And he divided the light and the darkness; here the disposing begins. And yet he says something of creation too, as though he created the darkness together with the light — that is, the shadow made by bodies set against the light; and he divided the created things by distance of place, and by quality, so that they should never be together, but always claim opposite hemispheres in turn. Here too the division of the angels is understood: those who stood were called light, those who fell darkness.
The twelfth-century summary, and the sentence in it that nobody else on the Latin bench writes: 'as though he created the darkness together with the light — that is, the shadow made by bodies set against the light.' It is a physical account of what darkness is that makes it a real effect of a real cause and not a privation, and Comestor slips it in with quasi and moves on to Bede's distance of place and the angels, keeping all three answers as Angelomus did three hundred years earlier. On the approval he splits the moment cleanly in two — it pleased God in his foreknowledge that it should be made, and pleased him in its being that it should remain — which is Alcuin's answer with a distinction added, and then offers 'he saw, that is, he made to be seen' as a figurative alternative, which is Remigius'. The Historia scholastica is at its most useful here: not a position, a map.
God made the darkness tooDivided by place and qualityThe darkness is the apostate angels'He saw' is approval, not discovery
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 1322–1332 · Paris
Here it is asked why on the second day it is not said, And God saw that it was good, as on the other days. To which some answer that it is because the number two is of ill repute, in that it is the first to depart from unity. But that answer seems to be trifling, especially because in the holy Gospel the number two is marked out as praiseworthy and mystical; whence on that passage of Luke 10, He sent them out two by two before his face, Gregory says that by the pair he signified charity, which is the most excellent of the virtues and the form of the virtues. Others say that the reason is that the angels who sinned fell on the second day; but this has no authority from the Scriptures, and so is dismissed as easily as it is proved, especially because the doctors commonly say that between the creation of the angels and their fall there was a brief moment of time, whereas on that answer there would have been at least the space of one natural day, since on everyone's account the angels were created at the beginning. Therefore Rabbi Solomon answers otherwise, and more according to the intention of the letter, as it seems, saying, and it is true, that this word, God saw that it was good, is said on the other days for the approval of the work of those days; and approval properly regards a work that is complete.
⚠ Anchor note: Lyra is on the day-two absence of the approval formula, Gen 1:8, which is outside this edition's scope; anchored on gen.1.4 under the second clause of the anchor rule, because the question is the one that verse raises and this crux is built on. This is the page Paul of Burgos indicts, and every charge in burgos-add-3 can be checked against it. He does call the fathers' answer truphatica, in that word. He does refute them from Luke 10 and Gregory, which Burgos calls a motive of small value. And he does prefer Rashi, in the sentence an early reader of this copy underlined in ink: Ideo aliter respondet Ra. Sa., et magis secundum intentionem littere. Two things are worth noticing that neither of his critics mentions. The first is that Lyra rejects two Latin answers and not one, and the second, that the angels fell on the second day, he refutes on strictly Latin grounds. The second is that the answer he takes from Rashi is not a Jewish reading of a Jewish text but a rule about how the word approval works: approbation regards a completed work, the separating of the waters was not finished until the third day, so the formula waits. Anyone could have said it. The quarrel that follows is not about whether it is right.
The approval is deliberately withheldThe approval waits for the work to be complete
Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson
latin · 1322–1332 · Paris
And he divided the light from the darkness. This dividing is by the motion of the sun, because when it moves over one hemisphere darkness comes to be in the opposite hemisphere, on account of the opacity of the earth which is in the middle. And he called the light Day, because day is the passage of the sun over the earth. And the darkness Night, because just as day is brought about by the presence of the sun, so night is brought about by its being hidden.
The one answer on this daf that is simply astronomy. Every other witness makes the dividing of light from darkness a question about what darkness is -- a privation ordered like the rests in a song, a creature God also made, the apostate angels, the wicked, the element of fire -- or about what the dividing does, whether it is a naming, an ordering or a judgement. Lyra makes it the earth's shadow. The sun moves over one hemisphere and darkness falls on the other because the earth is opaque and in the middle; day is the sun's passage over the earth and night is the sun being hidden. Augustine's metaphysical difficulty, how a nothing can be divided, does not arise, because on this account nothing is divided from anything: a body is interposed. It is worth setting beside Comestor, who two hundred years earlier knew perfectly well that a shadow is what bodies cast and had to introduce the thought with a quasi. Lyra needs no quasi and does not mention that anyone had ever thought otherwise.
The earth's shadowDarkness is not a thing
Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson
latin · c. 1429 · Burgos
On the same first chapter, where it says in the Postilla: 'Here it is asked why on the second day it is not said, And God saw that it was good, etc.' Addition 3. In this place the postillator seems to depart from rectitude in three ways: first, because he treats irreverently the authorities of doctors who hold no small authority among catholics; second, because he refutes what they say unreasonably; third, because he attributes to Rabbi Solomon the Hebrew the authority of a literal exposition which our own doctors found first. The first is plain: for the answer he calls a piece of trifling is that of the great doctor Rabanus, who in this place answers the question thus: 'Unless perhaps, as one of the fathers expounded, the double number is not good, which divides from unity and prefigures the covenants of marriage; whence in Noah's ark all the animals that enter two by two are unclean, and the odd number is shown to be clean.' So he. The Master too, in the second book, distinction 14, answering this question, says: 'Some mystery is here commended; for perhaps it is for this reason that it is not said here what nevertheless was done in the other cases, because two is the beginning of otherness and the sign of division from unity.' So he. It is therefore no small irreverence to call the exposition of doctors and fathers of such standing a piece of trifling.
⚠ Anchor note: Burgos is arguing about the day-two absence of the approval formula, which is Gen 1:8 and outside this edition's scope; the witness is anchored on gen.1.4 under the second clause of the anchor rule, because the question he is arguing -- what the presence or absence of Et vidit Deus quod esset bonum means -- is the question that verse raises and that this crux is built on. The single most important text in this edition for the question the whole project asks. Everywhere else on this daf two traditions read the same verses without knowing the other is there. Here a Latin bishop, born Solomon ha-Levi of Burgos and a rabbi until he was forty, is arguing in a printed Latin Bible about how much of the literal sense the Latin bench owes to Rashi -- and arguing that it owes less than Lyra says. The complaint has three heads and the third is the one that matters: the authority of a literal exposition which our doctors found first, he attributes to Ra. Sa. the Hebrew. An early reader of this copy underlined Ra. Sa. hebreo in ink. What Burgos then does is produce the Latin doctors who said it first, Rabanus and Peter Lombard, and quote them at length, so the page carries the evidence for its own claim. Notice what is not in dispute: neither man doubts that Rashi is worth reading or that the literal sense is where the argument is. The quarrel is over priority and credit, which is a quarrel two traditions can only have once they are in the same room.
The answer belongs to the Latin doctorsThe approval is deliberately withheld
Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson
latin · 1429–1450 · Paris
The first he calls trifling; the second he throws out as unfounded; the third he approves, taken from Rabbi Solomon. On which passage Burgos says that he departs from rectitude in three ways: because he irreverently calls the reasoning of the saints trifling; second, because he brings no valid argument against them; third, because he attributes the true answer to an unbeliever, though it is contained in our own gloss, to which he ought rather to have shown the honour. As to the first I answer that the postillator is not scoffing at the holy doctors but at unskilled readers, who choose for the literal sense what the saints adduce mystically by way of certain particular fitnesses, as is plain in many lectures on Genesis.
⚠ Anchor note: as with burgos-add-3 and lyra-gen-1-4-bonum, the passage argued about is the day-two absence of the approval formula at Gen 1:8; anchored on gen.1.4 under the second clause of the anchor rule. The third corner of the only quarrel in this edition that is about the rabbinic bench rather than merely parallel to it, and the corner that says the quiet part. Matthias Doering, Franciscan provincial of Saxony, summarising Burgos's charge in order to answer it, renders the third head not as Burgos wrote it -- Ra. Sa. hebreo -- but as veram responsionem attribuit INFIDELI, he attributes the true answer to an unbeliever. He does not dispute that the answer is true; the word verus is his own. What he disputes is that it is Rashi's: it is contained in our own gloss, and Lyra owed the honour there. And his defence of Lyra on the first charge gives away what the fight is really about. Lyra was not scoffing at the holy doctors, says Doering, but at unskilled readers who take for the literal sense what the saints said mystically. That is a quarrel about what the literal sense is for, conducted in a printed Bible by three Latins over the head of a Jew who has been dead three hundred years and whom all three have read. An early reader of this copy underlined Ra. Sa. on both leaves.
The answer belongs to the Latin doctors
Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson